Robust control tools for traffic monitoring in TCP/AQM networks

Several studies have considered control theory tools for traffic control in communication networks, as for example the congestion control issue in IP (Internet Protocol) routers. In this paper, we propose to design a linear observer for time-delay systems to address the traffic monitoring issue in TCP/AQM (Transmission Control Protocol/Active Queue Management) networks. Due to several propagation delays and the queueing delay, the set TCP/AQM is modeled as a multiple delayed system of a particular form. Hence, appropriate robust control tools as quadratic separation are adopted to construct a delay dependent observer for TCP flows estimation. Note that, the developed mechanism enables also the anomaly detection issue for a class of DoS (Denial of Service) attacks. At last, simulations via the network simulator NS-2 and an emulation experiment validate the proposed methodology

System Support for Bandwidth Management and Content Adaptation in Internet Applications

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of an operating system module, the Congestion Manager (CM), which provides integrated network flow management and exports a convenient programming interface that allows applications to be notified of, and adapt to, changing network conditions. We describe the API by which applications interface with the CM, and the architectural considerations that factored into the design. To evaluate the architecture and API, we describe our implementations of TCP; a streaming layered audio/video application; and an interactive audio application using the CM, and show that they achieve adaptive behavior without incurring much end-system overhead. All flows including TCP benefit from the sharing of congestion information, and applications are able to incorporate new functionality such as congestion control and adaptive behavior.Comment: 14 pages, appeared in OSDI 200

Enhancing IEEE 802.11MAC in congested environments

IEEE 802.11 is currently the most deployed wireless local area networking standard. It uses carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) to resolve contention between nodes. Contention windows (CW) change dynamically to adapt to the contention level: Upon each collision, a node doubles its CW to reduce further collision risks. Upon a successful transmission, the CW is reset, assuming that the contention level has dropped. However, the contention level is more likely to change slowly, and resetting the CW causes new collisions and retransmissions before the CW reaches the optimal value again. This wastes bandwidth and increases delays. In this paper we analyze simple slow CW decrease functions and compare their performances to the legacy standard. We use simulations and mathematical modeling to show their considerable improvements at all contention levels and transient phases, especially in highly congested environments

Congestion Control for Network-Aware Telehaptic Communication

Telehaptic applications involve delay-sensitive multimedia communication between remote locations with distinct Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for different media components. These QoS constraints pose a variety of challenges, especially when the communication occurs over a shared network, with unknown and time-varying cross-traffic. In this work, we propose a transport layer congestion control protocol for telehaptic applications operating over shared networks, termed as dynamic packetization module (DPM). DPM is a lossless, network-aware protocol which tunes the telehaptic packetization rate based on the level of congestion in the network. To monitor the network congestion, we devise a novel network feedback module, which communicates the end-to-end delays encountered by the telehaptic packets to the respective transmitters with negligible overhead. Via extensive simulations, we show that DPM meets the QoS requirements of telehaptic applications over a wide range of network cross-traffic conditions. We also report qualitative results of a real-time telepottery experiment with several human subjects, which reveal that DPM preserves the quality of telehaptic activity even under heavily congested network scenarios. Finally, we compare the performance of DPM with several previously proposed telehaptic communication protocols and demonstrate that DPM outperforms these protocols.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figure

PACE: Simple Multi-hop Scheduling for Single-radio 802.11-based Stub Wireless Mesh Networks

IEEE 802.11-based Stub Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are a cost-effective and flexible solution to extend wired network infrastructures. Yet, they suffer from two major problems: inefficiency and unfairness. A number of approaches have been proposed to tackle these problems, but they are too restrictive, highly complex, or require time synchronization and modifications to the IEEE 802.11 MAC. PACE is a simple multi-hop scheduling mechanism for Stub WMNs overlaid on the IEEE 802.11 MAC that jointly addresses the inefficiency and unfairness problems. It limits transmissions to a single mesh node at each time and ensures that each node has the opportunity to transmit a packet in each network-wide transmission round. Simulation results demonstrate that PACE can achieve optimal network capacity utilization and greatly outperforms state of the art CSMA/CA-based solutions as far as goodput, delay, and fairness are concerned